Frost 12th, 4622
Sharp were the edges of the light as it shone through the gaping maw of the Derelict. Stark darkness draped the framework of the sun's reach, stark darkness that almost fully concealed the Rathor's basalt carapace in its hold.
Unceremoniously, he pushed his voluminous tattered cloak of green toward himself with his rifle and reached for the lever at the center of that familiar room. The weight of his pull reverberated through the floor and drew a groan from the worn brass of the lever's foot.
Rivulets of dust and sand poured from the nooks, crannies, corners, and crevices of that carved stone cell as the sunken door began to rise once more.
Blood-red eyes drank the warmth of the sun's light a moment longer as the space steadily became engulfed in darkness.
Down from the sky, waiting in the dunes, was the half gaze of a maiden. The furrow of her brow beneath her darkened woven locks spoke volumes, and the press of a frown on her lips read just as much.
There was nothing quite like a woman's scorn, Arkash thought as his long lips curled a comforting smile that withheld plumes of black flame. His eyes met hers for the time that it took the jagged stone to rise to her chin, at which point, her gaze faltered.
His heart stopped.
Legs like lead, the Rath leaned forward, only to pause as the last slivers of light were sealed beyond the derelict's throat.
Deep metallic clanking sounded around him as the four brass gears in the corners of the room jolted to life. The structure shook once, then twice. Each pulse saw the floor sink an inch or two lower before the motor fully engaged, and the gears began to turn against the indented rail. With their motion, the floor beneath Arkash began to sink, crawling downward into deeper, colder darkness.
Deliberately, the Rath filled his lungs to the brim and back while he contemplated the carved stone walls around him. Night eye shining, he blankly drank the bumpy literature of chisel teeth as it trailed upward out of sight.
All too soon, the muffled boom of the elevator's reception snapped him to attention. He looked languidly looked over his shoulder as the gears settled and he came to a complete stop and beheld a long stretch of darkness as it reached deep into the stomach of the Derelict.
A deep exhale flared his nostrils the moment he made his peace with the treacherous dark of that tunnel, followed by the sift of fabric as he threw his rifle against his shoulder, removed the leather strap, then took his first step off the platform.
He stared a moment longer, the foot that remained upon the elevator hesitant to span an eternity... Only to yield to his will.
Arkash swallowed as his other foot met the ground.
His claws chipped and gnarled with months of abuse, splayed in the fine dirt to coat the uneven floor.
Silken streams jostled ahead of him, moved by the unseen force of a draft.
Sharp eyes narrowed at the movement, his breath stilled a moment longer before he pushed away from the elevator and began his march into the derelict.
The dark didn't stay him; he saw clearly despite its best effort to conceal the cave's interior. Past the silk-woven doorways, around bends, and down decrepit stairs the Rath ventured to the deepest part of the Derelict... And soon, he arrived at the threshold of the cavernous chamber. His domain.
Before him he lay; a gargantuan creature forged of iron chitin, scythe-like pincers, and swords for legs. The beast must have been more than thirty feet long, Arkash estimated while he gazed upon it in its dormant state.
Both hands prepared his rifle, and with the stock shouldered, he aimed the sight and searched for the head of the creature. All along the scutes of its shell, he followed the length of the beast, only to find its head obscured by the rest of its body.
Arkash curled his nose; plan B was in motion.
He swallowed hard, then stepped through the threshold of the door with his rifle lowered.
Almost immediately, Arkash's presence stirred the Strigoi. Its hide shifted as its needle-like legs flexed and dotted the dusty ground. Arkash's brow furrowed as he spied the movement of the beast through complete darkness. Mechanical and jittery in motion, it rose to tower above the Rathor. Unfurled, the scythe-like pincers of its arms beheld a malicious glint, accompanied by the emptiness of the creature's eyes as they turned to settle on the body of warmth that was Arkash.
The blood-curdling squeak of grinding chitin sounded in the shallow dark of the room as the beast's carapace flared along the spine, arming a trail of skewering spikes. Maw unfurled, the beast loosed a low, reverberating blast that vibrated deep in Arkash's chest; a broken melody of creaks and groans not unlike the distant warping buckling snap of steel.
Arkash's eyes widened, his mouth flooded with venom and seeped from his lips as instinctual terror claimed his heart. Claws clenched, he met the resistance of his gun's grip.
Recognition pierced the primal urge to flee, and with one hand, he raised the rifle and pulled the trigger.
The force of the recoil came almost before the thundering blast of gunfire, deafening in its roar. Blinding light flash-filled the cavern for the first time in a century, and the beast shrieked and reeled on the impact of the bullet, and the bolt of lightning to carry it.
Sky Stealer hit the ground behind the Rath, flung from his grip at the recoil. Arkash didn't reach for it, he didn't look for its landing. His gaze was affixed firmly to the creature's maw, where one of the pincers burned red around the frame of a wound. The appendage hung on by a thread, largely unfunctional but still attached.
His features curled as he whipped the pistol from his belt and began to run to the side; deeper into the room. Like the wind, the Strigoi swept after him, almost fully recovered from the disorientation.
As swift as the wind, Arkash evaded, took aim, then fired a ball bearing at the creature's face.
The ping of metal sounded as the bullet ricocheted; deflected by the nigh-impenetrable hull of the beast. Arkash frowned and snatched a purse of gunpowder from his form, severed the tie with his claw, rolled beneath the one-armed swipe of the Strigoi, and poured the gunpowder into the barrel on his landing. Another ball bearing was fished from his pocket when the purse was discarded and promptly stuffed into the primitive gun as the Strigoi's re-orientation proved effective. Again, it Dove for the Cardinal, only to miss him by a hair. Its blade stuck the ground as Arkash dove under, aimed upward, and fired a second round in the face of the beast.
Again, the pellet yielded to the creature's plated hide and stuck somewhere in the ceiling of the cavern.
New danger: Arkash was face-to-face with the bladed legs of the Strigoi, the dozens of legs the insectoid carried itself with. Immediately he stopped, and the thrust of the bladed legs pierced the ground where he would have stood if he'd continued that momentum.
The beast, Arkash knew, could think. It was calculating, cunning, and almost seemed to predict his movement.
So, he made some distance again and leaped backward over the long-winded swing of the beast's body. Mid-air, he snatched another powder charge and began to muzzle-load the pistol where he landed, crouched. On the iron of the barrel, he burned the underside of his hand, hissed, and reeled. Before his opponent could take advantage, Arkash was already on the move, and deftly avoided the cleave of a scythe.
On the run, he loaded another ball-bearing, turned, and fired aimlessly at the creature as it hounded him.
Another shot glanced at the creature's dome-like helm; all gunshots lesser than rifle fire were useless.
He stood there, burning gun in hand. After the third gunshot, the weapon had become hot enough to radiate and warm the once-stale air around his hand.
There Arkash stood, facing down the creature as it charged. Again he lifted the gun and took aim at the beast. His mouth poured yellowish saliva beneath the black flames of his serrated teeth and his skin crawled with the deafening command to run, but he held firm. Head focused, heart unsteady, he threw the pistol at the beast at the last moment and dove forward.
Arkash was spared a grizzly death at the beast's pincers, but the gun was not. The strigoi had seen the blinding heat signature of the weapon, which took up the entirety of its field of view as Arkash flung it in its gaze. In that precious split-second was the Dranoch's chance, and he took it.
Cold-flaming claws extended Arkash dove at the monster and cleaved the broken pincer from its face.
The beast roared, turned, and dove at him, but with a sidestep and a flick of his wrist, Arkash cleaved the other scythe from the monster's arsenal.
As the Strigoi crashed to the floor at his flank, Arkash caught the severed blade with his free hand; his plan had worked. The Strigoi was built with such incredible fortitude; the only thing that could damage it without issue was its own hide.
It recovered, bringing itself to stand as it had every time before. Arkash watched as he readied both blades at his sides; the stumps of its appendages wiggled at the base, as though it still believed they were attached.
So, he waited, he held firm as the beast rushed him a second time. He lowered his body, bared his venom-caked teeth, then roared in tandem with the creature's shriek as it swept its phantom pincers for the kill, missed as the Rath dove under once more, then stopped as the Rath punched both he scythes through the underside of the Strigoi's jaw and burst through the dome of the monster's head with the points of his borrowed weapons.
All the musculature of the beast tensed and contorted in reflex as the stem was severed. Arkash held his blades firm, teeth bared as thick amber fluid drizzled from above. With a war cry, Arkash withdrew one of the blades and thrust it back into the beast a mere inch from the last puncture, then did the same with the other blade.
Every stab yielded another spatter and another sprung leak as the Rath cathartically skewered his foe at last.
Only when the musculature of the newly-killed undead gave out did Arkash's manic stabbing cease; only when the beast crashed atop and trapped him beneath its weight.
Sharp were the edges of the light as it shone through the gaping maw of the Derelict. Stark darkness draped the framework of the sun's reach, stark darkness that almost fully concealed the Rathor's basalt carapace in its hold.
Unceremoniously, he pushed his voluminous tattered cloak of green toward himself with his rifle and reached for the lever at the center of that familiar room. The weight of his pull reverberated through the floor and drew a groan from the worn brass of the lever's foot.
Rivulets of dust and sand poured from the nooks, crannies, corners, and crevices of that carved stone cell as the sunken door began to rise once more.
Blood-red eyes drank the warmth of the sun's light a moment longer as the space steadily became engulfed in darkness.
Down from the sky, waiting in the dunes, was the half gaze of a maiden. The furrow of her brow beneath her darkened woven locks spoke volumes, and the press of a frown on her lips read just as much.
There was nothing quite like a woman's scorn, Arkash thought as his long lips curled a comforting smile that withheld plumes of black flame. His eyes met hers for the time that it took the jagged stone to rise to her chin, at which point, her gaze faltered.
His heart stopped.
Legs like lead, the Rath leaned forward, only to pause as the last slivers of light were sealed beyond the derelict's throat.
Deep metallic clanking sounded around him as the four brass gears in the corners of the room jolted to life. The structure shook once, then twice. Each pulse saw the floor sink an inch or two lower before the motor fully engaged, and the gears began to turn against the indented rail. With their motion, the floor beneath Arkash began to sink, crawling downward into deeper, colder darkness.
Deliberately, the Rath filled his lungs to the brim and back while he contemplated the carved stone walls around him. Night eye shining, he blankly drank the bumpy literature of chisel teeth as it trailed upward out of sight.
All too soon, the muffled boom of the elevator's reception snapped him to attention. He looked languidly looked over his shoulder as the gears settled and he came to a complete stop and beheld a long stretch of darkness as it reached deep into the stomach of the Derelict.
A deep exhale flared his nostrils the moment he made his peace with the treacherous dark of that tunnel, followed by the sift of fabric as he threw his rifle against his shoulder, removed the leather strap, then took his first step off the platform.
He stared a moment longer, the foot that remained upon the elevator hesitant to span an eternity... Only to yield to his will.
Arkash swallowed as his other foot met the ground.
His claws chipped and gnarled with months of abuse, splayed in the fine dirt to coat the uneven floor.
Silken streams jostled ahead of him, moved by the unseen force of a draft.
Sharp eyes narrowed at the movement, his breath stilled a moment longer before he pushed away from the elevator and began his march into the derelict.
The dark didn't stay him; he saw clearly despite its best effort to conceal the cave's interior. Past the silk-woven doorways, around bends, and down decrepit stairs the Rath ventured to the deepest part of the Derelict... And soon, he arrived at the threshold of the cavernous chamber. His domain.
Before him he lay; a gargantuan creature forged of iron chitin, scythe-like pincers, and swords for legs. The beast must have been more than thirty feet long, Arkash estimated while he gazed upon it in its dormant state.
Both hands prepared his rifle, and with the stock shouldered, he aimed the sight and searched for the head of the creature. All along the scutes of its shell, he followed the length of the beast, only to find its head obscured by the rest of its body.
Arkash curled his nose; plan B was in motion.
He swallowed hard, then stepped through the threshold of the door with his rifle lowered.
Almost immediately, Arkash's presence stirred the Strigoi. Its hide shifted as its needle-like legs flexed and dotted the dusty ground. Arkash's brow furrowed as he spied the movement of the beast through complete darkness. Mechanical and jittery in motion, it rose to tower above the Rathor. Unfurled, the scythe-like pincers of its arms beheld a malicious glint, accompanied by the emptiness of the creature's eyes as they turned to settle on the body of warmth that was Arkash.
The blood-curdling squeak of grinding chitin sounded in the shallow dark of the room as the beast's carapace flared along the spine, arming a trail of skewering spikes. Maw unfurled, the beast loosed a low, reverberating blast that vibrated deep in Arkash's chest; a broken melody of creaks and groans not unlike the distant warping buckling snap of steel.
Arkash's eyes widened, his mouth flooded with venom and seeped from his lips as instinctual terror claimed his heart. Claws clenched, he met the resistance of his gun's grip.
Recognition pierced the primal urge to flee, and with one hand, he raised the rifle and pulled the trigger.
The force of the recoil came almost before the thundering blast of gunfire, deafening in its roar. Blinding light flash-filled the cavern for the first time in a century, and the beast shrieked and reeled on the impact of the bullet, and the bolt of lightning to carry it.
Sky Stealer hit the ground behind the Rath, flung from his grip at the recoil. Arkash didn't reach for it, he didn't look for its landing. His gaze was affixed firmly to the creature's maw, where one of the pincers burned red around the frame of a wound. The appendage hung on by a thread, largely unfunctional but still attached.
His features curled as he whipped the pistol from his belt and began to run to the side; deeper into the room. Like the wind, the Strigoi swept after him, almost fully recovered from the disorientation.
As swift as the wind, Arkash evaded, took aim, then fired a ball bearing at the creature's face.
The ping of metal sounded as the bullet ricocheted; deflected by the nigh-impenetrable hull of the beast. Arkash frowned and snatched a purse of gunpowder from his form, severed the tie with his claw, rolled beneath the one-armed swipe of the Strigoi, and poured the gunpowder into the barrel on his landing. Another ball bearing was fished from his pocket when the purse was discarded and promptly stuffed into the primitive gun as the Strigoi's re-orientation proved effective. Again, it Dove for the Cardinal, only to miss him by a hair. Its blade stuck the ground as Arkash dove under, aimed upward, and fired a second round in the face of the beast.
Again, the pellet yielded to the creature's plated hide and stuck somewhere in the ceiling of the cavern.
New danger: Arkash was face-to-face with the bladed legs of the Strigoi, the dozens of legs the insectoid carried itself with. Immediately he stopped, and the thrust of the bladed legs pierced the ground where he would have stood if he'd continued that momentum.
The beast, Arkash knew, could think. It was calculating, cunning, and almost seemed to predict his movement.
So, he made some distance again and leaped backward over the long-winded swing of the beast's body. Mid-air, he snatched another powder charge and began to muzzle-load the pistol where he landed, crouched. On the iron of the barrel, he burned the underside of his hand, hissed, and reeled. Before his opponent could take advantage, Arkash was already on the move, and deftly avoided the cleave of a scythe.
On the run, he loaded another ball-bearing, turned, and fired aimlessly at the creature as it hounded him.
Another shot glanced at the creature's dome-like helm; all gunshots lesser than rifle fire were useless.
He stood there, burning gun in hand. After the third gunshot, the weapon had become hot enough to radiate and warm the once-stale air around his hand.
There Arkash stood, facing down the creature as it charged. Again he lifted the gun and took aim at the beast. His mouth poured yellowish saliva beneath the black flames of his serrated teeth and his skin crawled with the deafening command to run, but he held firm. Head focused, heart unsteady, he threw the pistol at the beast at the last moment and dove forward.
Arkash was spared a grizzly death at the beast's pincers, but the gun was not. The strigoi had seen the blinding heat signature of the weapon, which took up the entirety of its field of view as Arkash flung it in its gaze. In that precious split-second was the Dranoch's chance, and he took it.
Cold-flaming claws extended Arkash dove at the monster and cleaved the broken pincer from its face.
The beast roared, turned, and dove at him, but with a sidestep and a flick of his wrist, Arkash cleaved the other scythe from the monster's arsenal.
As the Strigoi crashed to the floor at his flank, Arkash caught the severed blade with his free hand; his plan had worked. The Strigoi was built with such incredible fortitude; the only thing that could damage it without issue was its own hide.
It recovered, bringing itself to stand as it had every time before. Arkash watched as he readied both blades at his sides; the stumps of its appendages wiggled at the base, as though it still believed they were attached.
So, he waited, he held firm as the beast rushed him a second time. He lowered his body, bared his venom-caked teeth, then roared in tandem with the creature's shriek as it swept its phantom pincers for the kill, missed as the Rath dove under once more, then stopped as the Rath punched both he scythes through the underside of the Strigoi's jaw and burst through the dome of the monster's head with the points of his borrowed weapons.
All the musculature of the beast tensed and contorted in reflex as the stem was severed. Arkash held his blades firm, teeth bared as thick amber fluid drizzled from above. With a war cry, Arkash withdrew one of the blades and thrust it back into the beast a mere inch from the last puncture, then did the same with the other blade.
Every stab yielded another spatter and another sprung leak as the Rath cathartically skewered his foe at last.
Only when the musculature of the newly-killed undead gave out did Arkash's manic stabbing cease; only when the beast crashed atop and trapped him beneath its weight.
Image source.
